The narrow Republican House majority in the 119th Congress will “have nothing to spare,” as it aims to “fix everything,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday, the morning after Democrats flipped a seat in California.
That narrows the GOP majority in the House to 220 to 215, and it’s set to become even narrower, as some House members are poised to join the incoming Trump administration, which would likely take the majority to 217-215 before those seats are filled.
“Do the math. We have nothing to spare, but all of our members know that,” Johnson said at a press conference. “We talked about that today, as we do constantly, that this is a team effort that we’ve got to all row in the same direction.”
In a rematch of their 2022 contest, Democrat Adam Gray was declared the winner of California’s 13th Congressional District race by just 187 votes, out of more than 202,000 votes cast, against incumbent Republican Rep. John Duarte on Tuesday. Duarte in 2022 defeated Gray by just 564 votes.
The speaker said House Republicans would work closely with the new Republican 53-47 majority in the Senate as well as with President-elect Donald Trump.
“We’ll deal with it, with a one-seat majority, just like we will when we fill those seats, three or four, whatever the final number is,” Johnson said. “The first 100 days agenda is going to be very aggressive. We have a lot to fix, and as we’ve been saying all along, we could be the most consequential Congress in the modern era because we’ve got to fix everything.”
“Everything” was a reference to President Joe Biden’s administration.
Joined by other House Republican leaders during the press conference, Johnson said the president’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, capped off another lie by the president and his administration.
“He told the American people that he would not issue a pardon for his son, and then he did. It was more than 10 occasions. We have the receipts,” the Louisiana lawmaker said. “It’s all on video. They made formal, official declarations. To that point, the White House said he wouldn’t do it.”
He called the pardon a “perversion of justice” and compared this to other lies.
“He misled the American people. It’s just like when he said the border was secure. It’s just like when he said Bidenomics is working great for the American people,” Johnson said. “It’s just like when he insisted his obvious mental acuity is fine. And it’s just like when he insisted his catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal was a success.”
On another matter, Johnson called it a “shameful day for the English-speaking world” regarding the British Parliament last week legalizing euthanasia for the entire country.
“It’s an ancient truth that medicine should always ‘do no harm,’ but the U.K. just joined Canada in twisting that definition of medicine and defying Orwellian language of ‘assisted death’ into law,” Johnson said.
